Almost half of all contacts, which are made to the employee rights advisory service for immigrants, comes from the service sectors

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The SAK lawyer explains the amount of contacts from the service sectors by the fact that employees of foreign origin often get their first employment specifically in these sectors.

The number of contacts, that the SAK employee rights advisory service deals with, has doubled during its second year in operation.

Almost every second foreign employee, that had been in touch with the advisory service - which was opened free-of-charge in March 2016 - was a worker in service sectors. More than every fifth worker enquired about the collective agreement in the facilities services sector, about 18 per cent asked about the collective agreement in hotel, restaurant and leisure services, while 8 per cent wanted to know about terms and conditions of employment in the retail sector, and 3 per cent about the private social service sector.

"The reason why the service sectors are standing out, is due to the fact that those jobs are common. Furthermore, employees of foreign origin often gets their first job within these sectors. In last year's advisory service these sector were also frequently occuring", states lawyer Sari-Anne Salminen on behalf of the employee rights advisory service in a press release from SAK.

Almost every second person who contacts the advisory service originated from Europe - Russian, Polish and Estonian workers were mostly in contact. The second largest group to be in touch was workers born in Asia, which amounted to about 40 per cent.

Almost every forth worker, who contacted the advisory service asked about their wages. In 14 per cent of the cases, workers enquired about issues relating to termination of employment, while 13 per cent concerned employment contract issues.

The SAK project is part of a Helsinki City At Work in Finland project subsidised by the European Social Fund ESF, and is also backed by Service Union United PAM.

The subsidy of ESF will end in August, but after that SAK will continue the advisory service free-of-charge until the end of this year by financing it on its own. SAK aims to make the project permanent and that is why the organisation is at the moment searching for finance in order for the advisory service to go on next year as well.

At Work in Finland – The employee rights advisory service for immigrants responds between 9 and 11 a.m. and between 12 and 3 p.m. on Tuedays and Wednesdays. Advice is available in Finnish and in English.